Gone Fishing

Florida Governor Rick Scott visited Philadelphia yesterday. He was seeking to meet with Pennsylvania headquartered companies and asking them to consider relocating to Florida. Why does feel slimy and unseemly?

Philadelphia like so many other northern States is emerged in another colder than usual winter and the thoughts of the warm Florida sun is certainly inviting. Why wouldn’t anyone want to work in a pleasant year round climate? At least that seemed to be the pitch the Florida Governor was making. But doesn’t the Governor have enough to say grace over just running his own State?

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Florida has higher unemployment, higher corporate taxes, lower average wage, and considerably lower levels of unionized workers than Pennsylvania. I can understand Governor Scott pitching the lower rate of union workers but its hard to imagine his enthusiasm about unemployment, taxes, and the prospect of workers earning less money.

In an eery similarity to the current GOP threat to shut down Homeland Security, Governor Scott sees a win for his State when a company relocates. Scott seems to overlook the hardship that would befall the target company’s workers. For Homeland Security workers, they will continue “working because they are deemed essential” but not get a pay check. This apparently does not offend any GOP test for fairness, The same seems true for Governor Scott.

Of course there could also be another motive. Governor Scott claimed also that in Florida companies would not have to operate under the policies of Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf. Hmmm. Governor Wolf, a Democrat, has been in office about one month so his impact is totally unmeasured.

I wonder whether Governor Scott sees the GOP Presidential nominee selection process as a mess, and given the other candidates, why not Scott? Nothing like an appearance in a far away Democrat State to project his name cleverly into the mix. Hmmm.